


Shared Empires

by pinkpop



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Affectionate Insults, Fluff, Other, contract killing for your lover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24168160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkpop/pseuds/pinkpop
Summary: You've been contracted to work for Rhys to help him get this blasted war done with, but Rhys may have accidentally fallen in love with you. Oops, right?
Relationships: Rhys (Borderlands)/Reader
Comments: 3
Kudos: 63





	Shared Empires

**Wednesday, 10:46 pm**

It’s been seven years since the fiasco with Handsome Jack and Hyperion, but you still can’t shake that blasted gaudy yellow colour from your mind’s eye whenever you see Rhys.

It’s hardly fair to keep associating him with the limp-dicked prick that awakened the Warrior - Rhys is the opposite of Jack in every way, except for the zeros in his bank account and the need to have an office with ceilings that are far too high (how are you supposed to kill spiders when they’re that high up?) Rhys is bumbly and friendly and harmless enough. And he’s better-looking, too. But that yellow colour is seared into your retinas for an eternity and there’s a tiny part of your unreasonable lizard brain that feels the need to point out Rhys’ involvement in what Hyperion did every time you come a little too close to enjoying yourself in his presence.

Still, he’s paying your wages as of right now and a deal is a deal; help him win this war against Maliwan and he’ll make sure you never struggle for a meal again. And if there’s anything at all that you’re good at, it’s killing corporations dead in the water.

“How you diddling, Mr Hyperion?” you ask, striding into Rhys office and feeling mighty proud of the frown you pull from him. _This kind of tingle could only come from irking Rhys,_ you think. _Or from finding the juicy photos Moxxi keeps stashed on her echo device._

“I thought I told you not to call me that,” Rhys says, handing you a gun as you cross the floor of his office and reach him where he stands.

“You did,” you chirp, cheerfully, “I just didn’t listen. What’s this for?”

Rhys straightens his back, puffs his chest out a little; all the hallmarks of a man who’s ever-so-proud of himself. He stands with his hands on his hips and his chin held high and you’re itching to throw out another teasing insult, just to bring him down a peg. It’s not fair to tease him so often and you know it, but lord is it fun to see him blush. And you’re, like, ninety percent certain he enjoys it, too.

“ _That_ is the finest Atlas weapon on the market,” he informs you. “It’s a reward… for killing that nutjob with the miniguns… You’re welcome.”

You look the gun over and shrug with one shoulder, then you stash it in your backpack and shrug the bag off, lobbing it onto one of the too-big sofas in the lavish seating area of the office. There’s no way in any reality that Rhys reads enough books to justify the size of those bookshelves, but you suppose rich people have to spend their money on _something._

“What’s next on the to-do list, then, boss?” you ask, hopping up and sitting on the back of the sofa, swinging your legs back and forth.

“Okay, I could really get used to you calling me _boss,_ ” Rhys says. “It’s… actually kind of a turn on, so let’s not talk about that anymore. Nothing is the answer to your question.” You pull your head back against the barrage of words that just flitted your way, but there’s no time to process them. Rhys is talking again. It seems he does that often. “There’s nothing on the to-do list,” he continues. “For once, we have a break in the chaos. Can’t tell you the last time that happened, I’m actually kinda miffed about it. I’m very accustomed to fearing for my life. But we’re off the clock for a while, so relish in the quiet for a while. You earned it!”

You let yourself slip backwards onto the sofa, laying upside down with your feet dangling over the back and stretching your arms out each side of you. He’s not the only one who’s used to living a fast-paced life. _Quiet_ is the exact opposite of your job description. Shooting, murdering, setting things on fire - all things that you’re far more suited to.

“Whatever will I do with all of this free time?” you ask, gazing up at the ceiling and watching a spider making the trek from one side to the other. _Maybe Rhys has a step ladder he uses to kill them?_

Rhys meddles with something out of view and music begins playing on a record player at the edge of the room - the soft, sweet kind that couples dance to; not the tedious wub-wubs that claptrap tortures you all with. Rhys comes back into view again when he leans over the back of the sofa, resting on his elbows. “We could try some dancing?” He says the words like he’s asking a question, wincing slightly as he tests the waters.

This is one of those moments that lizard brain ruins; reminding you of Rhys’ past and what it meant to you seven years ago. The fighting and the taunting and the constant cat and mouse. The people you lost, the ones you couldn’t save. Jack’s barrage of insults and moonshots; spat at you in equal measure. _Rhys could have pushed the button on any one of those moonshots,_ your lizard brain suggests. _He was complicit._

But that was then, wasn’t it? And this is now. He learned lessons from Jack. He’s _different._ And there’s no point in fighting for the future if you still spend all of your time in the past. It’s okay to enjoy a little taste of what you’re fighting for.

A smile spreads slowly across your lips and you cock an eyebrow. “You? Dancing? I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

“You’ve never seen my dancing,” he says accusingly, though there’s an upwards slant to one side of his mouth. “I have moves like no one else.”

“No doubt about that,” you tease, letting him help you up off the sofa.

The music tinkles and hums in the background as the two of you head for the centre of the office, surrounded by nothing but empty space. You shake out your hands and feet, warming up like you’re gearing for battle, and Rhys shakes his head with a grin.

“You really don’t know how to be graceful, do you?” he asks.

“Don’t get paid to be graceful, Rhysie boy,” you reply, rolling your neck until it cracks softly. “I get paid to kill stuff.”

“Well, let’s hang fire on that for now, shall we?” Rhys holds out his hands and you take them, letting him guide you. He’s better at dancing than you thought he’d be, but only slightly. _Better_ \- [quotation marks] - meaning he hasn’t yet tripped over his feet. But the night is still young, so you’ll not rule that out just yet.

He spins you and dips you and you both mutter a wealth of light-hearted insults between the pair of you. His bright smile could almost trick you into thinking he’s good at this. That he’s not a bumbling idiot with a too-big office and two left feet. A part of him is actually quite suave… in his own way.

“Am I impressing you?” he asks.

“Give me a minute and I’ll decide,” you smile as he spins you around on the spot.

“Oh, come on, I’m impressing you. Admit it, I’m great at this.”

He pulls a laugh from you, and against your better judgement, you allow it. There’s no way he’ll ever let you forget it if you compliment him on his dancing skills, so you opt for something with a little more self-preservation. A safe middle ground.

“You’re making a good effort,” you offer.

“Pfft,” comes the reply. He twirls you outwards and pulls you back in again.

“Okay then, hotshot,” you say, landing against his chest with a soft oof, the breath catching in your throat. “You’re a lot better than I expected you’d be. How’s that?”

He grins widely, the smile reaching his eyes. One of them is blue, the other a hazel colour that looks almost as electronically enhanced as the other. _Do eyes naturally come in colours that bright?_ There’s a moment that seems to stretch for an extraordinarily long length of time, where you find yourself questioning the bizarre and totally irrational urge to do something weird, like kissing him or something. What madness that would be, right? Crazy.

You’ve both slowed down, now, the dancing mostly forgotten. All that’s left is a gentle sway as he speaks. “I wanna ask you something,” he says. “But I’m a little bit terrified of you.”

“A little bit terrified?” you echo. “No need to be scared of me unless you’re thinking about cutting my wages.”

He gives a nervous laugh that fades off as quickly as it’d had appeared. “Your wages are safe with me,” he says. “But that’s kind of along the lines of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Go on…”

Rhys spins you around to face the window behind his desk, the entire city visible beyond it in all its glowing glory. The neon lights paint a million different colours on the floor of the office and the sky is speckled with explosions that almost look pretty if you imagine that they’re not a product of war. The whole office is flooded by the view, buildings visible through every window.

“I wanna share this with you,” Rhys says. “All of it.”

“What do you mean?” you ask him, the light flooding your eyes, overloading you with input.

“I don’t want all this to myself,” he explains. “It’s too much. Kingdoms are meant to be shared, right? Well, we've gotten to know each other pretty well over the last few months and I... I wanna share this one with you. If you’d want that, obviously.”

“You mean, like, business partners?”

He laughs, nervous again. “If business partners are in love with each other, then yeah, I guess.”

You turn to face him and look up at him with your eyebrows raised. Now it’s your turn to blush; not an easy task for someone to accomplish. _Touche, Mr Hyperion._

“I shouldn’t have said that, should I?” he asks, watching you as you look up at him, slightly dumbfounded. Then he seems to cave in on himself a little, shoulders slumping. “I know you’re only here because I’m paying you to be here and I know you’re waaaaay too cool to ever feel that way about an idiot like me, but I figured I’d give it a try anyway, you know? And see if maybe you’d - “

You push up onto your toes and press a kiss to his lips, cursing him for being lanky enough to make you put effort into kissing him. If he were any taller, you’d need a harness and those stabby things that rock climbers jab into cliff faces.

He holds onto your waist as you kiss and for all his bumbling and lack of self-assurance, he soon takes to it, cupping your jaw with one hand and leaning down to meet you halfway.

Your own hands take hold of the collar of his vest, gripping fabric on either side and using it to pull him towards you. With shuffling steps, the two of you are edging towards the desk as one, all stumbling and heavy breathing, carefully making your way up the shallow steps, until you hit the edge of the desk.

“I don’t think this is an appropriate way to act with your employees,” you breathe.

“Then you’re fired,” Rhys says. “There; now you’re not an employee.”

Your heart hammers in your chest, pulse thrumming in your ears to match the beat. Wobbly legs and and a woozy light-headedness tell you that your body is pumping adrenaline through you at record pace. It’s different than the feeling you get on the battlefield; you feel so much more out of your depth here. Out there, you have a rhythm - motions to go through. Routine. But here, you’re just going with the flow, not quite knowing what you’re doing. A new partner means a new rhythm. A new pattern to be learned. What makes Rhys tick? What does he like and dislike? What does he -

“Oh!”

The two of you break apart at the sound of the voice coming from the doorway. Surprise in both of your faces matches the surprise in Lorelei’s voice, though you're pretty sure she's had more of a shock. She watches you with her arms folded across her chest and her hip jutted out to one side as you and Rhys gather yourselves up.

“If I had a dollar for every time I’d walked in on you in a compromising position, I’d be able to buy you out of Atlas,” she tells Rhys. He smiles uncomfortably and fixes his tie. “But this takes the bloody cake,” she adds.

“We were celebrating,” you offer.

Lorelei hums. “I’ll bet,” she says, looking amused. “But you were celebrating prematurely. Maliwan just showed up at the front door and they’re not bothering to ring the doorbell. Need you outside, Vault Hunter.”

Rhys sighs heavy and turns to you, the last traces of his pant visible in the way his chest moves with each breath. “I knew it was too good to be true.”

“Yeah,” you agree, sighing. You smooth out your hair and make your way over to the seating area to collect your backpack, crossing the room on shaky legs. Hauling your bag onto your shoulders, you pick out your favourite gun and check that it’s loaded. “Alright,” you muse, nodding to Rhys and then to Lorelei, “back to work, then.

**Friday, 6:13 am**

Just gone 6 am. It’s so early you might actually cry and the constant _tick tick tick_ of the clock in Rhys’ bedroom is slowly pushing you over the edge, seemingly just to spite you.

Rhys sleeps peacefully beside you, one arm draped over you. Soft snores leaving his lips, stirring up that god-awful moustache ruining his face. Not for the first time, you contemplate shaving it off while he sleeps. Or maybe setting it on fire? _No, that’d probably hurt him._ You watch him sleeping for a moment longer before the clock’s tedious taunts begin grating on your nerves again.

 _That’s it,_ you think, _I gotta kill it._

You sit up and gently shove the sheets off - silk, grey in colour to match the industrial metal of Rhys’ room and damn near everything else on Promethea. It’s a break from the sand and rock colours of Pandora, at least. You’ve never thought that grey could be so refreshing, but after spending a significant amount of time on a planet that literally has a place called _The Dust,_ you’re just thankful that it’s not frigging beige.

You have to stand on an armchair to reach the clock on Rhys’ wall and once or twice you almost fall, your legs still wobbly from sleep and the celebratory bloody mary’s you and Rhys had thrown down your necks last night. Memories surface, albeit blurry ones; Rhys’ smile, his dumb jokes landing better than usual thanks to the ethanol, hands wandering under the table while Atlas soldiers booze it up on the other side of the room.

The clock tumbles off the wall when you smack it, vengefully, and Rhys pretty much leaves his body when it clatters to the floor. Bless him, but he looks like he might have just had an aneurysm. There’s a few moments of silence as he blinks away the fogginess, sitting up and looking around the room like he’s just been born.

“You okay?” you ask. He nods, slightly confused. He looks like he might be trying to remember his name. “Good,” you say, holding back a giggle.

Rhys rubs his eyes with his knuckles, digging in deep enough to spark a kaleidoscope, no doubt. He’s shirtless and his hair is a mess - his locks having dried curly and shaggy after you’d drunkenly (and totally playfully) dunked each other in the indoor fountain on the way through the lobby last night - but it suits him a lot more than his usual business getup, you think. He looks less work and more play, which is always the way to be.

“You want some coffee for that hangover, Mr CEO?” you ask, hopping down from the armchair and landing on the metal floor, barefooted.

“Coffee sounds amazing,” he replies, giving you a sleepy smile. He frowns when he spies you picking up the cracked remains of his clock from the floor. “What happened to my clock?” he asks.

“I killed it.”

“Why?”

“It was ticking,” you say simply, flashing the object a look of disgust before heading towards the buzzer on the door and nonchalantly dropping the blasted clock into the rubbish bin on your way past. You thumb the pad on the wall beside the door and speak into the comms. “Two coffees with extra cinnamon when you’re ready, Butler Bot. Throw in a little ethanol if you’re feeling generous.”

“I’ll be right with you!” the robotic voice complies, way too cheerfully for this hour of the morning.

As you pad your way back over to the bed on the balls of your feet, Rhys sits at the foot of the mattress, still wrapped up in the sheets at his waist. He waits for you to approach with his arms open and you stand between his legs, the pair of you still warm and toasty with sleep. He hugs your waist and looks up at you through eyes that at least seem a little more alert now.

“How did you end up here?” he asks as you comb his hair back from his forehead.

“You offered to pay me otherworldly amounts of money for the rest of my life,” you reply. “And as a Vault Hunter, I’m legally and morally required to do anything for money.”

“I mean here,” he clarifies, smiling. “In my bed. With one of my shirts on.”

You look up at the ceiling, pressing a finger to your chin under the pretence of searching for an answer. A hum and a shake of the head draws Rhys’ smile up even further at the corners. “Can’t think of any reason in particular,” you say. “Maybe it’s just your dashing wit.”

“And my wonderful fashion sense,” he says, straightening a little.

“The alcohol helped, too.”

Rhys pulls you in against him and you topple, the pair of you landing with a bouncy _thwump_ on the mattress. You giggle and sigh while he places a few strategic kisses on your throat and the sweet tickling of that bloody ‘stache is the one and only thing worth keeping it around for. Lord knows the pash rash down under makes a good argument for shaving it off, though. Eugh.

Rhys rolls sideways and you land beside him with his arm draped over you once again. It seems like you’ve spent the last 48 hours doing anything but moving - the whole time, you’ve been hanging off him like the punters at the bar hang off Moxxi. He hasn’t seemed to mind so far. His eyes haven’t left you in a solid three weeks. If you didn’t find him so innocently charming, then you’d probably have shot him in the face by now, in all honesty.

“We can stay here all day if you want,” he mumbles quietly, only a hairbreadth away.

“Screw the war and let them take Promethea?” you say.

Rhys props his head up on his hand and leans over you. “Well,” he says, shrugging, “we could always save the planet tomorrow instead. I am the CEO of Atlas, you know. I can pretty much do what I want.”

“That sounds like a very shady way of looking at it.”

You smile, but it’s tinged with sadness. You both know letting Maliwan and the bloody Children of The Corn take over Promethea isn’t on the cards. Hell, it isn’t even written on the throw-aways. If this damn war weren’t raging overhead, then you and Rhys would have all the time you wanted. But alas, it is. Another villain taking up your time, another stranger who needs your help, another wrong that needs to be righted.

“I can stay until noon,” you tell him, craning your neck to deliver a swift and equally sweet kiss to his lips. “But then I have to go. You know how it is.”

“Yeah,” he sighs, tracing circles around the edge of the button on your borrowed shirt. “I know. I just hate that we can’t spend enough time together.”

You push up onto your elbows and sit up, gaining height on him (for once) and revelling in the way he looks up at you with that sparkle in his eyes. That sparkle comes when he watches you do two things; when you kill and when you boss him around. You’re beginning to think he has a little bit of a fetish for those two things and you’re not so certain which one is stranger.

With a pointed finger tip pressed to his chest, you push him down further into the mattress and swing a leg over him, straddling his waist. “Why, Mr CEO, you should know that it’s not about the amount of time spent,” you tell him, summoning the most painfully flirtatious tone that drips off your tongue with each word. You lean down and he watches you with those wide sparkling eyes, hardly believing his luck. “It’s about what you do with it,” you add.

Rhys swallows, the pounding in his chest visible. He doesn’t get a word out before you kiss him, but you doubt he’d be much more than speechless anyway. A few second of waiting for a response would have probably only earned you a little drool and a murmur that you imagine would have sounded a lot like _“murrmuhnuhnuh?”_

The kiss is all kinds of lovely now that last night’s booze has mostly worn off and you pray to the Maker that Butler Bot doesn’t interrupt with that coffee. In an ideal world, it would conveniently take him the next two hours to prepare those piping hot cups of bean water, but realistically you know you have a little over five minutes before he comes zooming in with a tray in hand, offering cheery commentary on your sexual performance. Robots don’t have a grasp on social etiquette.

Still, you can’t quite bring yourself to stop Rhys from flipping you over, despite the embarrassment that is surely on the way up the stairs this very moment.

Rhys breaks the kiss, hovering over you with your legs wrapped around his waist. “Is this okay?” he asks, that cute, bumbly nervousness creeping in. “This is what you want, right?”

You smile up at him, pearly whites on show. He returns the smile even though you haven’t given him an answer yet. Bless him, he _really likes you._

“This is exactly what I want,” you tell him. “But if you’d be a doll and hurry up before Butler Bot barges in with those coffees, that’d be amazing.”

He leans down and gets right back to it, laying down kisses like they’re landmines in a field of Eridium clusters. There’s no way in hell that something that feels this good is legal. Or even morally sound. You’ve gotten a lot of kicks in your time but this is on another level. You’re a tad bit lightheaded, only it feels good, not dangerous. The thumping in your rib cage thrums through your ears, too, and your breath comes quick and heavy. All of this feels a little bit like heaven, if you’re honest - not that you’d ever get up there after all the things you’ve done for money. Still, you can afford to enjoy this little taste of life beyond those pearly gates, right?

You lose your fingers in the hair at the back of Rhys’ head and grip the slightest bit tighter when his hand squeezes your thigh. His whiskers tickle at your collar bone as he leaves his kisses across your chest. You can tell that some of them will have left hickies in their wake come tonight and you look forward to wearing them on the battlefield. There’s something deliciously petty about letting Maliwan and those COV losers know that you still have the time to get laid in between putting them under the dirt.

Rhys comes up to take a breather, his cheeks pink and breath slightly laboured. “This is more than just good fun, right?” he asks.

You tilt your head to one side, trying to pin his meaning. Watching his breaths come and go, stirring up that moustache, you speak. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re… you’re waaaay cooler than me and I - I just figure maybe you’re just having fun while you’re on the job and I was just hoping that maybe it’s more than just… that.” He swallows between breaths. “Is it?”

A slow smile creeps up to the corners of your eyes and you reach a hand up to smooth out his dumb frigging moustache that you’re shamefully beginning to like. In a weird, love/hate kinda way. “If I wanted fun, I definitely wouldn’t be fighting yet another corporate war on a planet in the arse end of the galaxy,” you say. “I think I could find better ways to get my kicks if that’s what I was looking for.”

“And that means…”

You cup his face with both hands. “It means I like you, you idiot,” you giggle. “For reasons that may never be known.”

Rhys grins like a Rakkshire Cat and that sparkle is back to twinkling in his eyes with a hot vengeance. He leans down and presses his lips to yours once, twice, three times. And with a soft sigh, you flop your arms onto the mattress on either side of you and let the moment take you.


End file.
